


a good drink, a quiet companion, an endless canvas of stars

by armyofbees



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/F, Friendship, Gen, Introspection, Lesbians in Space, Love them, Pre-Canon, forgot to mention that!!, i am so pleased that the first thing to come up when i typed acxa's name was their relationship tag, non-binary narti, poorly hidden relationships, that's a tag!!!, the funky space lesbians reign supreme, they're FRIENDS and you can't convince me otherwise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-16 18:35:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15443274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/armyofbees/pseuds/armyofbees
Summary: There’s no point in ruining their fun. It’s not like it affects the way they work and he and Acxa seem to have agreed that it’s not his business anyway. He doesn’t say anything when he’s skimming through surveillance footage and spots Narti ducking into Ezor’s chambers, and none of them say anything when he quietly installs soundproofing around their doors and the wall he shares with Acxa’s room.





	a good drink, a quiet companion, an endless canvas of stars

**Author's Note:**

> you: lotor is cold and heartless  
> me: he loves four (4) space lesbians
> 
> anyways nothing to do with lotor after season three actually happened and narti is still alive. thanks for your cooperation
> 
> couple of things: first, i know that full well that nunvil is the canon equivalent of liquor but i'll die before i ever utter that word within a fic. point being: think of ksue as space sake, or something. second, the gang's awesome ship (before they build the ships out of the fancy comet) never got a name in canon, so i named it the nihilus. if you don't write your own lore then you're a coward
> 
> enjoy!

They’re the most conspicuous assassins Lotor knows, and his father has sent some pretty awful assassins. Maybe it’s easier to hide the fact that you’re trying to kill someone than that you’re in love with your coworkers? Not like he’d know. But they’re horrible.

It’s not like they have good excuses, either. They’re generals. They should know how to lie. But one time, he opened a visual comm to send them coordinates and their way of hiding Narti and Zethrid on the floor in the background was to throw a towel over them. After the comm had opened. In full view of the camera.

“Lotor, sir!” Acxa exclaimed, while Ezor waved frantically next to her, trying to draw his attention from the loud, indignantly squirming towel behind them.

Honest to gods, Lotor was speechless for a moment. He took the look on Acxa’s face to mean, “If you don’t say anything, we won’t either.” So he gave them the coordinates and closed the comm. He, honestly, didn’t want to know. He still doesn’t.

He’s not mean about it, though. That reminds him far too much of his father, and he’ll throw himself into a collapsing star before he comes anywhere close to resembling Zarkon. There’s no point in ruining their fun. It’s not like it affects the way they work and he and Acxa seem to have agreed that it’s not his business anyway.

He doesn’t say anything when he’s skimming through surveillance footage and spots Narti ducking into Ezor’s chambers, and none of them say anything when he quietly installs soundproofing around their doors and the wall he shares with Acxa’s room.

It takes a while but eventually they loosen up, once they realize that he doesn’t care what they do. They can manage themselves, and as long as none of them do anything to put their mission in jeopardy, he has nothing to actually hold against them. On the rare occasion that they all share a meal, Zethrid will put an arm around Acxa’s shoulders and Acxa will _almost_ not glance at Lotor. Sometimes on missions Lotor will shut down his comms so that he doesn’t have to listen to them flirt. They’re comfortable, and it works.

And every so often, Lotor will leave them the ship for an evening. It’s nice to be alone and just look at the universe. It’s also nice to know that he doesn’t have to listen to them do their… thing.

Always when they’re in a remote part of the galaxy and always when he’s sure no one will come looking for them. When they’re safe. He takes a pod and floats above the ship for a few hours, keeping the Nihilus within view, in case his precautions fail.

Sometimes he brings a bottle of ksue if he’s in a good mood, and a flute to drink it from if he’s feeling especially fancy. Kova might tag along too, because despite his link to Narti, not even he wants to put up with the four generals’ shenanigans. Lotor supposes there’s something comforting about a good drink, a quiet companion, and an endless canvas of stars.

Tonight, they’re surveying the night sky from just outside the atmosphere of a golden ice planet. Sulfur and iron in the surface water, slowly frozen over millennia of drifting away from the old, browning star that lies light-years away, dying. The light cast from the planet’s surface washes the pod’s cockpit in the colors of a golden-bronze sunset, like a poorly preserved memory.

Kova is curled up on the console. He offers a yawn and a flick of his tail. Lotor takes a sip from his flute of ksue, eyes scanning thoughtfully over the planet’s surface.

“They treat you well, don’t they?” Lotor asks eventually. He’s not expecting a response, but Kova shifts his head to listen. “Narti… you’re not displeased with them?”

The cat gives him a look as if to say, _You know damn well I can’t talk._

Lotor smiles faintly and takes another sip of ksue. “Just making sure. You two are a fine team, it would be a shame to lose one of you.”

Kova mews. Lotor takes that as an affirmation and returns his attention to the planet. The gold is struck through with browns and blacks, where mountain ranges and cities once were. Lotor doesn’t even know this planet’s name. He wonders distantly who lived here before. He probably could’ve known, once. Again, he feels terribly, terribly old.

There’s something fundamentally disquieting about living so much longer than everyone else. The only people he’s known his whole life are his parents and the only people who will live as long as him are his guinea pigs. The Alteans. His life means leaving behind everything else… generations of would-be friends and generals and fellow princes, all falling to the test of time. Lotor has to accept that he’ll end up outliving these generals, too.

It’s not that he wants to die before them. It’s just that he’d rather they didn’t age so much faster than him. Even these four, the strongest women, strongest people he knows… are fragile when faced with the crushing weight of eternity.

They’re fleetingly young, in love, willing to put up with his family drama. He’s lost track of when he actually became fond of them, when he decided he’d sacrifice his well-being for them. He can only hope that that goes both ways. He only wishes that there was something he could do to protect them from the inevitable future.

He hates that he hates thinking about this.

He’s finishing off his third flute of ksue when Kova stands, stretches, and hops into Lotor’s lap.

“I suppose it is about time to head back,” Lotor murmurs, patting Kova’s soft head. The cat doesn’t purr, exactly, but it seems pleased, so he keeps petting it as he engages the thrusters and pilots the pod slowly back to the Nihilus.

He carries Kova into the bridge, footsteps quiet, intent on giving the surveillance radars one last glance before bed. Acxa is there. She’s not wearing her armor, only a simple gray shift and slippers that Lotor didn’t know she owned. Her blaster rests on the console next to her.

Lotor sets Kova gently on the ground and the cat gives the air a sniff before wandering out to an adjacent corridor. “Evening.”

Acxa gets as close as she ever does to smiling and gestures to the chair next to her. Lotor sits, offering a questioning glance as an opener.

She turns to look out the main viewport. It’s half-obscured by the dead planet and far, far in the distance is the pinhead of its decaying star. Lotor feels very old. It’s a sad feeling.

“I wanted to say…” Acxa begins, then hesitates. She seems embarrassed, which is fair. Lotor just knowingly spent the night in a pod off-ship so that she and her girlfriends (consorts?) didn’t have to worry about him hearing them do… whatever they do when he’s not there.

“I wanted to say thank you.”

Lotor blinks. “You don’t have anything to thank me for.”

“Come on, sir. Don’t play dumb.” Acxa still doesn’t look at him. Her cheeks are flushed dark blue. “I know you don’t want to hear about us, and honestly, I don’t want to tell. But thank you for letting us… be.”

Lotor fixes his gaze on the dim star. “I am not my father, Acxa. How long have you known me?”

Acxa pauses for a long time, then actually smiles. “Too long, sir.”

“You understand. At this point, I’m barely even your superior.” He pauses. “Don’t tell anyone I said that. Don’t take it to heart either.” Acxa chuckles. “But I trust you, Acxa. I don’t trust many people. If I were willing to jeopardize that trust over something as trivial as this, what kind of strategist would I be?”

“Ah, so you’re using us,” she teases.

“Of course.” Lotor side-eyes her. “Don’t you know? I always have some scheme going on.”

“You can play cold and heartless all you like, sir. But it’s like you said — we know you.” Acxa stands, snagging her blaster from the console. Obviously, her point has been made. She pats him on the shoulder as she passes, still smiling. “We trust you too, you know. We’ve got your back.”

Lotor is quiet as she pads out of the bridge and the doors slide shut behind her with a quiet hiss. He looks down at his hands. They’re not quite shaking. He folds them together in his lap and looks up at the planet before him, everything in this system dead and dying. Remote. Safe. He’s glad, in a profound sense, that he’s not alone.

**Author's Note:**

> by the way, i asked my beta for suggestions for the name of their ship and they said, immediately:  
> \- poseidon's paper airplane  
> \- sheila  
> \- the myrmidon, mimi for short  
> \- lotor & co's traveling circus  
> \- the gaymobile  
> and, finally  
> \- sleipnir
> 
> thanks for reading!!


End file.
